I can kill two birds with one stone with these. I remember playing a game of 2E some many years with a regular group at the time and in character I tried to muster up some spiritual might to accomplish something uncommon. The GM called for a D20 roll and declared the action a failure. IIRC my character had fell into a pit and I wanted to have him fly out. Well, character had no means to fly, so he just tried to do it through sheer force of will.

It was that action that inspired me to want to actively create a class that could use 'selected chosen powers' and channel them with spiritual energy. I did some research and started work on a class called the Soul Channeler.

This is one of the elements that started to shape the Tale of the Twin Suns. It had always been in my head, even as a child before I had been introduced to role-playing games; I had my own imaginary world where I could do anything I wanted (almost any child does though). It wasn't until I was introduced to AD&D 1E in 1991 that I could quantify that world with mechanics to define it. My best friend at the time let me borrow his PHB and let me make a photocopy of it. I immediately went to work on creating an array of characters for his campaign. As a single player in his campaign I drove his imagination to create a unique world by asking questions about it, in a manner that was on par with character immersion.

Creating came naturally to me. I wrote mounds of papers for my campaign world, even going so far as to copy down monsters word for word into looseleaf sheets to populate it. It wasn't until 3E that I was able to wrap my head around the mechanics of D&D so completely that rebuilding it from the ground up to shape what I knew true of my world into the mechanics. Pathfinder blew my expectations of fantasy right open. It invalidated most of what I had written before, but the concepts were still there. I knew my world would be 1 part cyberpunk, 3 parts medieval fantasy and 2 parts Star Wars and 4 parts Victorian Fantasy. Enter Sarunia, the re-imagining of Tale of The Twin Suns; a world where almost anything is possible. Good and Evil are not the predominant factors in determining what is defined, but rather Chaos and Law are.

Nature is chaos embodied. Law is the invention of the mortal mind. Sarûnia seeks to convey the image a world where its natural inhabitants embrace the chaos and further its spread while maintaining order over themselves and their culture, while the "alien races" (dwarves and elves are loosely included in this group even though they are natives to the world) seek to usurp the land and enslave its bounty, imposing their mental image of law onto the untamed wilderness. Wildlings, a racial bridge between the chaos of nature and the self imposed laws of the humanoid kinds are truly the outcasts as they are seen as 'bastard stock' by both sides; some are able to hide their heritage and others seek to just act dumb enough to not be seen by those that would try to hurt them.

None. I have been without a group for far too long and though I could playtest it online, I wish to wait until the races and classes are 100% written out before giving it a trial run. I have been using the Green Ronin Advanced Player's Manual as a guideline when creating the races and trying to keep the classes fairly balanced against each other all while giving both a slight power boost. The only class I'm worried about being more powerful than the rest is the Unrestrained. All the class abilities + the powers that can be bought weigh heavy on my mind in terms as to what might need to be scaled back. Sarûnia as a campaign setting, is about letting the player's have fun, not really about balance. Whatever changes will be made in the course of play-testing it will be to iron out the bumps, equal out any unfair advantages and to keep the game enjoyable.

Alright I have something to ask of the Sarûnia creator. As the ambassador of Gnomes with my Support Your Local Gnome tag in my box, I'm kind of curious of what Sarûnia has to offer for gnomes. Are they included? Are they tinker gnomes, illusionist gnomes, forest gnomes, or perhaps an experiment in svirfneblin? Or has today bee the day someone broached you about the subject?

Boddynock wrote:Alright I have something to ask of the Sarûnia creator. As the ambassador of Gnomes with my Support Your Local Gnome tag in my box, I'm kind of curious of what Sarûnia has to offer for gnomes. Are they included?

You're gonna hate me. I don't like gnomes, therefore not included in my vision of the world.

My goal though is to write a systemless campaign book that you can drop into any rule-set. So you can include gnomes in your visison of Sarûnia.

I have been using the Green Ronin Advanced Player's Manual as a guideline when creating the races and trying to keep the classes fairly balanced against each other all while giving both a slight power boost.

I hit my muse on my birthday, revised the ranger class. Making them the go to archer or whirling dervish of steel fury class. Will be working on fleshing out the fluff for the races soon and nailing down crunch and fluff of the rest of the classes and any feats that are inspired off of that material.

I really want to focus on getting the races and classes hammered out, I have been dragging my feet for too long in getting it done. I'm not setting a date to have it done by, but I am going to make the time every day to work on this.

I hit my muse on my birthday, revised the ranger class. Making them the go to archer or whirling dervish of steel fury class. Will be working on fleshing out the fluff for the races soon and nailing down crunch and fluff of the rest of the classes and any feats that are inspired off of that material.

I thought I saw some new updates in the forum, but the posts seem to have disappeared. Did you post something then delete it?

The Angelic Dragon wrote:I really want to focus on getting the races and classes hammered out, I have been dragging my feet for too long in getting it done. I'm not setting a date to have it done by, but I am going to make the time every day to work on this.

For Kulan, I've been busy working on my monster lists and recently came up with a complete PC race list for the Lands of Harqual. (I think I e-mailed it to you through Facebook. I can't remember. If I did, you should know I've changed/added to it significantly.)

Right now, I've been working on my monster lists for Harqual and updating several of my CC2 related to the region of Harqual known as The Bulge.

I get what might be the two parts Star Wars, if by this you mean Jedi knights with "light-sabers" and "the force" as similar elements used by Soul Channelers. But if I'm wrong, what elements were you going to incorporate.

Also: I assume the "Victorian fantasy" equates somewhat to Steampunk? if it does, this seems like the perfect element for gnomes. ?But the one part cyberpunk has me confused. I guess I find that fantasy campaign worlds totally immersed with tech have a hard time shaping a unique flavor. Especially looming in the shadows of Blackmoor and the like.

Additionally I have soured on such games as Shadowrun over the years. But the entire combination sounds intriguing. Tell me more...

It's about as gothic as you can get with anthropomorphic beavers.

"You stumble into a spacious chamber with at least ten exits." The DM is a jerk. --Jeff Rients from Jeff's Gameblog

julius_cleaver wrote:I get what might be the two parts Star Wars, if by this you mean Jedi knights with "light-sabers" and "the force" as similar elements used by Soul Channelers. But if I'm wrong, what elements were you going to incorporate.

You hit the nail on the head there. Part of the feel of the world that is developing is a sort of oriental/wuxia vibe. That was completely unintentional, but I am embracing it. Anchorites (a base class) and Soul Channelers (a prestige class) gain a number of abilities that are similar to the force. The concept sprung form my dislike of the monk class and an attempt to try something in character in an AD&D game that wasn't covered by the rules (to jump out of a pit way too deep to actually jump out of, I thought that this should be something a creative dm should allow for attempting to breaking the confines of a system).

julius_cleaver wrote:Also: I assume the "Victorian fantasy" equates somewhat to Steampunk? if it does, this seems like the perfect element for gnomes. ?But the one part cyberpunk has me confused. I guess I find that fantasy campaign worlds totally immersed with tech have a hard time shaping a unique flavor. Especially looming in the shadows of Blackmoor and the like.

Victorian fantasy is the background feel of the lands that call themselves "civilized". And it shines through by allowing options that are typical for Victorian times; I am drawing some inspiration from Cthulhu, Masque of the Red Death (the Ravenloft Campaign setting expansion set in Gothic Earth) among other sources that I have yet to purchase.

I am taking a lot of inspiration from Blackmoor for the "secret" history of Sarûnia. The world is hollow. A great machine of vast power is the heart of the world, regulating the ecosytem of the outside world. An ancient race built this "heart" and constructed the plantetary shell around it. I don't have the reason of why yet, but I intend to somehow draw inspiration for this from Najara.

julius_cleaver wrote:Additionally I have soured on such games as Shadowrun over the years. But the entire combination sounds intriguing. Tell me more...

This is nowhere near typical SciFi cyberpunk. It is more something akin to Etherscope. I also have no intent to make netrunning a feature of Sarûnia. Computers in their infancy and the elves of the world are working on this tech, instead of using artificial parts forged from man-made materials these computers are "organic". I don't want a heavy feel of "etherpunk", this is all in its infancy.

As a long time role-player, I have played enough game systems that I know what I like in a campaign. With Bruce taking this course with Calidar I hope this is an increasing trend. I personally feel there are enough rule systems out there to satisfy everyone. Additionally a good DM can model any campaign setting with the rules he likes to use.

Probably a minority opinion, but I am afraid I have little or no interest in 4e or 5e, and attempts to convert campaign settings to those rule systems. This also allows campaign creators to concentrate less on the mechanics of a world, and more on the imaginative side!!

Looking forward to seeing what you come up with next "Angelic Dragon"...

It's about as gothic as you can get with anthropomorphic beavers.

"You stumble into a spacious chamber with at least ten exits." The DM is a jerk. --Jeff Rients from Jeff's Gameblog

Well the campaign setting itself is going to be systemless. I recognize the desire that people have to be able to drop a world into any system of their choice, with little to no work to be able to GM it. So I personally don't see how hard it is to go the Green Ronin route of Freeport, make the setting systemless and have a separate book for the crunch that supports the world.

I am a big fan of 3E and Pathfinder, so the Player's Compendium is going to be geared towards Pathfinder. I am working on the Player's Compendium first so that I can get a feel of the fluff that I am establishing through the crunch. I am close to being done with the base classes, after that I am finishing up the races. Once the races are done, I plan to focus more on establishing a Gazetter and from there a full fledged campaign setting book that will be offered with an SCL (Sarûnia Campaign License) so that other people can create more for he world, building on what has been established while not mucking up my vision for the setting.